Moving Cows to the Calving Barn (59)
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- čas přidán 1. 11. 2022
- Moving Cows to the Calving Barn - In this week’s video, we are moving cows to the calving barn in preparation for them to give birth. We do this every week on Thursdays.
If you have any questions about this week's video, leave them in the comments, and I will post a Q&A video on Sunday if needed. As always, thanks for watching!
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My name is Piet van Bedaf, and I'm a dairy farmer in central North Dakota alongside my parents. Together, we milk around 1600 cows, mostly Holsteins. We are originally from the Netherlands, and immigrated to Canada first and then the United States in 2008. Subscribe and follow along to see the ins and outs of a modern day dairy farm!
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I've seen half of your videos now. You have set up a wonderful dairy and what is really admirable is that everything is clean at your dairy. You can see that there is a plan behind everything you do. You have 3,000 cattle and 1,600 of them are dairy cows, so isn't 1,400 young cattle a lot?
Thank you! We are milking 1600 cows, we have around 200 dry cows and 1150 heifers.
Boy those girls sure were excited about getting moved to to those pens with all that straw.
They actually followed him, I have never seen that before.
@@dhenschel4 That is a testament as to how well they treat their animals on their farm. Cattle are not dumb, they trust their handlers and do not feel threatened.
Hello from northern NY. We start around 120 calves a month in hutches. We feed all pastuerized milk. We start at 3 quarts and bump them up 1 quart every 2 weeks until they get to 5 quarts. They get 5 quarts twice a day until 60 days and then we just give them milk in the morning and water in the afternoon for 10 days. They are weaned at 70 days. It works for us. If they get bumped up too fast they will scour.
The place we send some of them to get boarded says they are some of the biggest calves they get.
Thank you for your input! Sounds like we could bump up the milk another quart if 4 quarts works well.
As always thanks very much for your time making vids that teach high quality content.
Give calves milk 2 times a day.
First 7 days access to hay not silage dried grass 2.5 L whole milk then 2 days mix whole milk / replacement.
Moved to group pens hay water trough and calf feed 10 weeks milk replacement 3.5L. Then 5 day to wean
greetings 🇸🇪
Thank you for your input! In the group pens are they on auto feeders, buckets or bottles?
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 Buckets with pacifier and washed once a week. Advisors think they should be washed more often, but as long as it's the same group, we don't see a health issue
What an amazing calf shed
We are farming in Norway. Moved 14 years ago from Holland. Feeding are calves 3 times 3 liter for 8 weeks
Thank you for your input!
Another great video awsome operation
Thank you!
You did a very nice job of explaining how your dairy farm operates!
Thank you!
I would like to see some videos of the manure systems of the farm and procedures of getting rid of it
I have posted some videos of this in the past, but there will definitely be more in the future!
Huge calf barn. Very clean. Awesome job
Thank you!
We feed 10l of pasteuriersed milk a day for 8 weeks. Then we slowly work the calves down to 2L day until week 14. Week 15 is 0 Liters. We manage more than a 1kg of growth per day in that time period. In school I learnd that calves have to weight at least 120kg after 3 months and so thats what we am for
Greetings from Germany
Thank you for your input! That is good growth your calves are achieving!
I like the straw packs cause they got better footing
Great video Piet👍
Thank you!
I've raised a bunch of calves over the years and found the best way is to feed whole milk . I feed at least 2 quarts twice a day to start, more if its a larger frame calf . If no problems I'll keep on increasing until I can get them to 3 qt twice a day (maybe 4 qt if they can handle it) until week 4 then taper back down. Feeding a higher rate will create more of a problem getting them to get started on calf starter hence is why the reduced rate towards the end of milk feeding. This really gives the babies a good start (almost the same as staying on the cow) . Hope this helps Piet!
Thank you for your input!
Great video Piet! Always excited when I see the notification!! What do you guys do with bull calves?
We don't raise those ourselves, they are sold to two local farms that raise them for beef.
We feed the calfs 2 liters 3 times a day the first 3 days thet get milk from there mother after that they get milk replacer untill they are 6 weeks old after that they get 3 liters 2 times a day with some brokjes ( dont know the english word) mix with very short straw until theh are 8 weeks old than they dont get milk any more
Thank you for sharing!
Could you elaborate or explain your ventilation system in your calf barn, and are you happy with it ??
The tubes above the calves are blowing fresh air into the barn from outside all the time. The side curtains are operated by thermostats and start to open when the temperature reaches 45° F. We went for a narrow barn with a tall ceiling to improve air quality in the barn. It has worked very well for our calves.
The way your feed them now if it’s working for you keep doing it that way your calves look very healthy so I guess I would change
The calves are doing good, but I think we can make small improvements here and there. I'm interested to see if we can notice a difference.
Would it be worth the effort to work whey from the creamery into your calves' diet? I noticed that it was being discarded after the curds had formed. I remember a time when the creamery shipped whey back to the dairy after the milk had been delivered. This was then used as a feed supplement for the calves.
We have a small amount of whey available now and they don't make cheese every day so it's inconsistently available. In the future if it's available everyday we could use it as feed for the calves or cows.
What is the process you do when drying off the cows.
I can cover this in a video in the future. When the cows are milked the last time before going dry, they receive teat sealant tubes and are moved from milking pen to dry cow pen.
Great videon Port ! Hope to see many more and the cheese making !
Do you pasteurisize the colostrum? Which vaccinations you give before you move the cows and heifers in the close up group? How many closeups groups you have? Heifers and cows in one closeup group? Do you feed anionic salts? Nice videos
We tried pasteurizing colostrum 8 years ago but ended up with clumps in the colostrum, so we haven't since. Ultra Bac for cows, Endovac for heifers and Virashield for cows and heifers. I believe we do feed anionic salts, but I would have to confirm with our nutritionist.
Hi piet is there some space for dutch farmers who want to leave holland because all the problems overhere.
There is still plenty of space for dairy farms, the biggest thing would be finding space near a processor that is looking for more milk.
What was biggest day of cows and heifer calving in one day ?
We can have days with 10 to 15 calves occasionally. The first year we were milking cows here we had 30 calves in one day once.
Probably a really silly question...What is the difference between a Cow and a Heffer? Really enjoy your videos. Very informative.
Before she has her first Calf she is considered a heifer, after her first Calf she becomes a cow.
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 Thank you very much! Appreciate the information.
Hello, I'm french. I have a question, do you practice epigenetics on dairy farm ?
Tanks
We do some genomic testing, I'm looking into testing all of our calves in the future.
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 Okay, but I was talking about epigenetics, that is to say the external factors such as food, housing, hygiene that influence the performance of the future animal.
To be more specific, what is the management of your calves from birth to weaning, quantity of milk per day, concentrated...
As well as calving preparations, do you analyze things on these cows?
I am interested in going to work and visiting dairy farms in Holsteins and Jerseys in Canada but also in the United States.
In addition, I am also passionate about soil conservation agriculture, do you practice it, do you know any farms that do it?
Thanks in advance
Sorry for the spelling mistakes
I see some of your barns are wood beams and some are steel
Wood construction was typically more affordable. Our heifer barn is steel because it was originally a bedded pack barn with a large span without posts over the bedded pack area. A steel frame could handle that distance better.
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 No worries about fire with steel, however with that little wood there shouldn't be a problem with that either.
How long is your dry period?
At least 45 days.
Were is your farm located i live in fargo
In Carrington, about 2 hours northwest of Fargo.
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 i know were that is my dad used to live in Jamestown and I lived in devils lake at the time
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 today was the first time watching any of your videos and planning on watching many more in the future I'm a new subscriber
hello friend, I have a few questions for you
where are you from?, how many cows do you have?, who built your farm, would the people who built your farm come to another country to build farms?, I would like to build a farm just like yours for 500 cows.
I am from Serbia
We are originally from the Netherlands. We are milking 1600 cows. I don't think our builder has any interest in building outside of the US.
IM NEW TO YOUR CHANNEL HONEY
Thanks for watching
1,600 milking cows - how did you know there would be demand for that much milk in your area? Wouldn't that have put other dairy's in the area out of business? I know you had good intentions when starting the dairy so I don't think that is the case, however given the sparse population in ND I wouldn't think there would be demand for that much milk.
North Dakota is becoming a very big dairy state. Cheaper and less government regulations. A lot of farms moved there from California
@@bobaganooshy So they are shipping milk around the country? I would think the cost of shipping would prevent even shipping one state away. Looking at my milk container it comes from Central CA which is about 100 miles away, so I guess it may be possible. I could see shipping the raw milk a long distance to be processed, but even that doesn't seem feasible.
Before we build the farm here in North Dakota, we had an agreement with a processor that was looking for more milk and anytime we expanded it was after knowing the processor would need the milk. We wouldn't milk more cows without having an immediate market for the milk. The population is sparse, but there is still milk brought from other states into North Dakota.
@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 You really worked that out great - I grew up in WI with a dairy every mile, and now I am in CA where there are mammoth dairies in the Central Valley. I hope if I start a dairy some day there is surplus demand, but I will likely have to move.
Sorry ! Its Piet !